Washington: The United States Supreme Court has struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship, delivering the biggest legal setback to his presidency since it ruled against his tariff regime earlier this year.
But in a major win for the Trump administration, the court allowed states to bar transgender athletes from women’s and girls’ sports, finding that given the inherent physical differences between the sexes, “separate sports teams for biological males and biological females are reasonable”.
The opinions were handed down just before the court’s long summer break, and come one day after a flurry of verdicts on Trump administration matters that will impact presidential power long beyond Trump’s term.
In a split decision, the majority of the bench affirmed birthright citizenship, determining: “Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights – to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land’.”
The first sentence of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution states: “All persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
One of Trump’s first acts on January 20, 2025 – the day he took office – was to sign an executive order stipulating that citizenship should not be recognised if a baby’s mother was unlawfully present in the US at the time of the birth, and the father was not a citizen or permanent resident.
Citizenship would also not be recognised if the mother was legally but temporarily in the US at the time of the birth, and the father was not a citizen or permanent resident.
Trump already foreshadowed that he expected the court to rule against him. In the minutes before the verdict was delivered, he posted a link to an article that laid out how bills before the US Congress sought to amend immigration law and curb birthright citizenship in much the same way as his executive order.
Immigration reform has been a key focus of Trump’s second term, including closing the southern border with Mexico, and deporting millions of people the administration says are living in the US illegally.
Despite its 6-3 conservative majority frequently finding in Trump’s favour, the Supreme Court has been one of the major handbrakes on the president’s agenda – most notably when it struck down his so-called “reciprocal tariffs” in February.
More to come
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.
